Parkwood Primary School

About Parkwood Primary School

Parkwood Primary School is a popular choice among Hackney families, with 73 applications for just 27 places in the 2025/26 admissions round, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.7. Of those, 19 families put it as their first preference, and all 19 received an offer. The school doesn't publish a parent recommendation percentage, but the demand speaks for itself. Headteacher Paul Thomas leads a mixed, non-religious state primary for children aged 2 to 11, with a nursery on site. The school has capacity for 240 pupils but currently enrols 197, so there is some breathing room. Just under half of pupils (46.5%) are eligible for free school meals, reflecting the diverse intake. In its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2024, the school was judged to remain Good, with Outstanding early years provision and Good leadership and management.

Academically, Parkwood's Key Stage 2 results for 2023/24 show a mixed picture. The proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined was 64%, which is below the Hackney local authority average of 74%. In individual subjects, 72% met the expected standard in reading and maths, and 80% did so in writing. At the higher standard, 28% achieved it in reading, 24% in maths, but just 8% in writing. The average scores were 104 in reading and 103 in maths, both slightly above the national benchmark of 100. Nationally, the school ranks in the 45th percentile for the combined expected standard, and within Hackney it sits 40th out of 49 primary schools. Its closest outstanding-rated neighbour is Grazebrook Primary School, 1.1 km away.

The school offers a solid range of facilities including a gymnasium, sports hall, outdoor playground, sensory room, forest school and playing fields. Sports on offer include tennis, cross country, dance, cricket, gymnastics and football, and there are clubs for choir, gardening and drama. SEND provision is well developed, with support for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, speech, language and communication needs, hearing impairment, autistic spectrum disorder, and social, emotional and mental health needs. Parkwood is a good fit for families who want a genuinely inclusive local primary with strong early years provision and a broad extracurricular offer, and who are comfortable with a school that is popular but not yet oversubscribed to the point of being unreachable for first-preference applicants.

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